Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth

by Robert A. Johnson

Jung took the audacious point of view that humanity holds a specific role in creation: to contribute the act of consciousness and the point of view of morality, in its highest sense. We are surrounded by a universe that is awesome and beautiful, but its forces behave in a way that is amoral. They are not concerned, as we are, with the specifically human values of justice, fairness, protection of the defenseless, service to our fellow humans, the keeping intact of the fabric of practical life. It is we who have to introduce these values into the world around us. And since the creatures who arise in our Active Imagination are often, for all practical purposes, personifications of the impersonal forces of nature, it is we who must bring the ethical, humane, and practical elements into Active Imagination.